Early adolescent executive functioning, intrauterine exposures and own drug use

Abstract

Individual differences in adolescents' executive functioning are often attributed either to intrauterine substance exposure or to adolescents' own substance use, but both predictors typically have not been evaluated simultaneously in the same study. This prospective study evaluated whether intrauterine drug exposures, the adolescents' own substance use, and/or their potential interactions are related to poorer executive functioning after controlling for important contextual variables. Analyses were based on data collected on a sample of 137 predominantly African-American/ African Caribbean adolescents from low-income urban backgrounds who were followed since their term birth. Intrauterine substance exposures (cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes) and adolescents' substance use were documented using a combination of biological assays and maternal and adolescent self-report. At 12-14 years of age, examiners masked to intrauterine exposures and current substance use assessed the adolescents using the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS), an age-referenced instrument evaluating multiple dimensions of executive functioning (EF). Results of covariate-controlled analyses in this study suggest that when intrauterine substance exposures and young adolescents' substance use variables were in the same analysis models, subtle differences in specific EF outcomes were identifiable in this non-referred sample. While further study with larger samples is indicated, these findings suggest that 1) research on adolescent substance use and intrauterine exposure research should evaluate both predictors simultaneously; 2) subtle neurocognitive effects associated with specific intrauterine drug exposures can be identified during early adolescence; and 3) intrauterine substance exposure effects may differ from those associated with adolescents' own drug use.

Level of intrauterine cocaine exposure and neuropsychological test scores in preadolescence: subtle effects on auditory attention and narrative memory

“…Although the reason for this counter-intuitive finding is not known, similar paradoxical effects were found in prior research with this cohort at different ages [13,47,113]. Some have suggested that, in the context of prenatal exposure to other substances, prenatal tobacco exposure may serve a protective function for some aspects of neuropsychological functioning, or may reflect gene-environment transactions not assessed in the present study [39,53,57,114]. …”

Systematic Review of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure and Adolescent Development

“…48 A third found no relations with working memory or inhibitory control, but the PCE group improved at a slower rate and had marginally lower scores than the NCE group on incidental memory tasks. 36 Another study found that the PCE group demonstrated poorer performance on 2 memory tasks compared with the NCE group.…”

“…Six of the 8 studies examined prenatal tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana exposure [35][36][37]45,48,49 ; 1 included prenatal tobacco and alcohol only. 24 Five measured exposures as any versus none (Table 5).…”

“…24,[35][36][37]45 One study reported negative associations with prenatal marijuana and alcohol exposure and positive associations with prenatal tobacco exposure and executive functioning. 48 Another study reported that youth with prenatal marijuana exposure were less likely to have an IEP. 45 Five studies examined the caregiving environment, including the quality of the home, caregiver stability, postnatal/ current caregiver drug use, and caregiver depression/psychopathology (Table 6).…”

“…24,36,37,45,49 Two studies found that caregiver depression was not associated with language development 36 or neurocognitive function, 37 and 1 found that environmental stimulation was associated with neurocognitive function. 37 Three studies examined violence exposure, 24,45,48 and 2 did not examine the caregiving environment or violence exposure. 35,43 Associations were direct and did not interact with PCE.…”